Naturally, under these circumstances, it was all in vain that Guy Waring pursued his investigations into Montague Nevitt’s whereabouts. Neither at Plymouth nor anywhere else along the skirts of Dartmoor could he learn that anything more had been seen or heard of the man who called himself “Mr. McGregor.” And yet Guy felt sure Nevitt wouldn’t go far from Mambury, as things stood just then; for as soon as he missed the pocket-book containing the three thousand pounds, he would surely take some steps to recover it.
Two days later, however, Gilbert Gildersleeve sat in the hotel at Plymouth, where he had moved from Ivybridge after—well, as he phrased it to himself, after that unfortunate accident. The blustering Q.C. was like another man now. For the first time in his life he knew what it meant to be nervous and timid. Every sound made him suppress an involuntary start; for as yet he had heard no whisper of the body being discovered. He couldn’t leave the neighbourhood, however, till the murder was out. Dangerous as he felt it to remain on the spot, some strange spell seemed to bind him against his will to Dartmoor. He must stop and hear what local gossip had to say when the body came to light. And above all, for the present, he hadn’t the courage to go home; he dared not face his own wife and daughter.
So he stayed on and lounged, and pretended to interest himself with walks over the hills and up the Tamar valley.
As he sat there in the billiard-room, that day, a young fellow entered whom he remembered to have seen once or twice in London, at evening parties, with Montague Nevitt. He turned pale at the sight—Gilbert Gildersleeve turned pale, that great red man. At first he didn’t even remember the young fellow’s name; but it came back to him in time that he was one Guy Waring. It was a hard ordeal to meet him, but Gilbert Gildersleeve felt he must brazen it out. To slink away from the young man would be to rouse suspicion. So they sat and talked for a minute or two together, on indifferent subjects, neither, to say truth, being very well pleased to see the other under such peculiar circumstances. Then Guy, who had the least reason for concealment of the two, sauntered out for a stroll, with his heart still full of that villain Nevitt, whose name, of course, he had never mentioned to Gilbert Gildersleeve. And Gilbert Gildersleeve, for his part, had had equal cause for a corresponding reticence as to their common acquaintance.
Just as Guy left the room, the landlord dropped in and began to talk with his guest about the latest new sensation.
“Heard the news, sir, this morning?” he asked, with an important air. “Inspector’s just told me. A case very much in your line of business. Dead body’s been discovered at Mambury, choked, and then thrown among the brake by the river. Name of McGregor—a visitor from London. And they do say the police have a clue to the murderer. Person who did it—”
Gilbert Gildersleeve’s heart gave a great bound within him, and then stood stock-still; but by an iron effort of will he suppressed all outer sign of his profound emotion. He seemed to the observant eye merely interested and curious, as the landlord finished his sentence carelessly—“Person who did it’s supposed to be a young man who was at Mambury this week, of the name of Waring.”
Gilbert Gildersleeve’s heart gave another bound, still more violent than before. But again he repressed with difficulty all external symptoms of his profound agitation. This was very strange news. Then somebody else was suspected instead of himself. In one way that was bad; for Gilbert Gildersleeve had a conscience and a sense of justice. But, in another way, why, it would save time for the moment, and divert attention from his own personality. Better anything now than immediate suspicion. In a week or two more every trace would be lost of his presence at Mambury.
“Waring,” he said thoughtfully, turning over the name to himself, as if he attached it to no particular individual. “Waring—Waring—Waring.”
He paused and looked hard. Ha! so far good! It was clear the landlord didn’t know Waring was the name of the young man who had just left the billiard-room. This was lucky, indeed, for if he HAD known it now, and had taxed Guy then and there, before his own very face, with being the murderer of this unknown person at Mambury, Gilbert Gildersleeve felt no course would have been open for him save to tell the whole truth on the spot unreservedly. Try as he would, he COULDN’T see another man arrested before his very eyes for the crime he himself had really, though almost unwittingly, committed.
“Waring,” he repeated slowly, like one who endeavoured to collect his scattered thoughts; “what sort of person was he, do you know? And how did the police come to get a clue to him?”
The landlord, nothing loth, went off into a long and circumstantial story of the discovery of the body, with minute details of how the innkeeper at Mambury had traced the supposed murderer—who gave no name—by an envelope which he’d left in his bedroom that evening. The county was up in arms about the affair to-day. All Dartmoor was being searched, and it was supposed the fellow was in hiding somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tavistock or Oakhampton. They’d catch him by to-night. The landlord wouldn’t be surprised, indeed, now he came to think on it, if his truest himself—here a very long pause—were retained by-and-by for the prosecution.
Gilbert Gildersleeve drew a deep breath, unperceived. That was all, was it? The pause had unnerved him. He talked some minutes, as unconcernedly as he could, though trembling inwardly all the while, about the murder and the murderer. The landlord listened with profound respect to the words of legal wisdom as they dropped from his lips; for he knew Mr. Gildersleeve by common repute as one of the ablest and acutest of criminal lawyers in all England. Then, after a short interval, the big burly man, moving his guilty fingers nervously over the seal on his watch-chain, and assuming as much as possible his ordinary air of blustering self-assertion, asked, in an off-hand fashion, “By the way, let me see, I’ve, some business to arrange; what’s the number of my friend Mr. Billington’s bedroom?”
The landlord looked up with a little start of surprise. “Mr. Billington?” he said, hesitating. “We’ve got no Mr. Billington.”
Gilbert Gildersleeve smiled a sickly smile. It was neck or nothing now. He must go right through with it. “Oh yes,” he answered, with prompt conviction, playing a dangerous card well—for how could he know what name this young man Waring might possibly be passing under? “The gentleman who was talking to me when you came in just now. His name’s Billington—though, perhaps,” he added, after a pause, with a reflective air, “he may have given you another one. Young men will be young men. They’ve often some reason, when travelling, for concealing their names. Though Billington’s not the sort of fellow, to be sure, who’s likely to be knocking about anywhere incognito.”
The landlord laughed. “Oh, we’ve plenty of that sort,” he replied good-humouredly. “Both ladies and gentlemen. It all makes trade. But your friend ain’t one of ‘em. To tell you the truth, he didn’t give any name at all when he came to the hotel; and we didn’t ask any. Billington, is it? Ah, Billington, Billington. I knew a Billington myself once, a trainer at Newmarket. Well, he’s a very pleasant young man, nice-spoken, and that; but I don’t fancy he’s quite right in his head, somehow.”
With instinctive cleverness, Gilbert Gildersleeve snatched at the opening at once. “Ah no, poor fellow,” he said, shaking his head sympathetically. “You’ve found that out already, have you? Well, he’s subject to delusions a bit; mere harmless delusions; but he’s not at all dangerous. Excitable, very, when anything odd turns up; he’ll be calling himself Waring and giving ............